


Be Less Uncool

by artiebird



Category: Be More Chill - Iconis/Tracz
Genre: Autistic Character, During Canon, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-19
Updated: 2017-11-20
Packaged: 2019-02-04 04:42:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 24
Words: 12,920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12763407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/artiebird/pseuds/artiebird
Summary: The day that ruined everything was just a normal one for Michael, initially. His alarm went off in the morning—this really cool vintage one Jeremy got him for his 15th birthday. The coolest. It had the little knob that hit the two sides and made the clock shake and sometimes fall off his desk? It was his favourite thing.This is just Be More Chill from Michael's perspective. Also, Michael's autistic. Also also, Michael has a crush on Jeremy. It's explicitly stated to be a crush but the fic isn't actually about romance.





	1. Act One - Scene One - More than Survive

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! I would just like to anxiously make note of a few things.  
> 1\. This fic is the first piece of fiction (let alone fanfiction) I've ever written and I haven't taken an English class since grade 12, so that's a thing. I'm terrified to hell and back about posting this and I don't know how good it is like, at all. I have zero frame of reference. So feedback is appreciated if you read it? I also don't have anyone to beta/edit or anything either so if there are errors, yikes. My apologies.  
> 2\. The dialogue is taken directly from the show 90% of the time! I am just writing Michael's thoughts behind it. The only times I write dialogue are for bits that don't happen in the actual show itself.  
> 3\. Michael being autistic is based heavily on my autistic experience but I'm a stereotypical autistic so sorry if he comes across very "little boy who plays with trains"-y. The way I write though, with the awkward jolted sentences? With the sporadic jumpy thoughts? Me. That part's on me.  
> 4\. Michael has two mums cause I'm gay and I wrote it. His mom's a doctor and his mama runs a crafts service but it only happens a few hours a day so she's home a lot. They love and appreciate Michael very much. I have put a lot more thought into these mums than required for the purposes of this piece of fiction.  
> 5\. I actually wrote 50% of this back in July or August, then wrote the other half in October. I just didn't finish it until recently. If the writing visibly changed over the gaps I'm sorry? I don't know how to not do that.  
> 6\. Thank you so much for reading and I hope you enjoy <3

The day that ruined everything was just a normal one for Michael, initially. His alarm went off in the morning—this really cool vintage one Jeremy got him for his fifteenth birthday. The coolest. It had the little knob that hit the two sides and made the clock shake and sometimes fall off his desk? It was his favourite thing.

It went off though, and it was a little less entertaining when it was waking him up. He slapped it to make it stop. (Another classic and wonderful trait.) He dragged himself out of bed like any day. He brushed his teeth like any day.

Michael could drive to school, but he walked instead. He normally did that— He lived close enough and busses were just too much to handle most of the time. Plus, when he walked it took longer, which meant he got to listen to his music for as long as possible.

Jeremy told him that it isn’t cool if you don’t drive to school, especially when you can, and Michael was never sure how he felt about that. He could drive, but that doesn’t mean he liked it. It also doesn’t mean he was any good at parking. It was better if he just walked. He wasn’t "cool" anyways. It wasn’t worth anything to try to be a little less not cool.

Between classes Rich caught Michael at his locker. He tried to swerve past him, but the guy grabbed him by the sweater.

“Hey, where’s you’re boyfriend?”

“Fuck off, Rich.”

“Nah, turn around.”

Telling Rich off rarely did anything, and it didn’t then either. He got shoved against the metal lockers and he contemplated for a moment how strong Rich was, based on size alone Michael should have had the advantage. He changed his mind pretty quickly though, because in all fairness, Rich was fucking ripped. And he had him pressed against a locker as he scribbled on his backpack. Wonderful.

Rich liked to do his business fast. Like the panda expression Michael was told as a kid to demonstrate commas. Eats, shoots, and leaves. Not like actual pandas though, as far as Michael knew they were slow and boring. Rich let him go when he had finished writing and walked off as if nothing had happened. Once he was left alone, Michael checked his bag and to his confusion all Rich had scribbled was “RIENDS”. His brain cycled through some words these letters could be short for. Maybe it was an acronym? But it clicked quickly.

“Oh. It’s a gay joke.”

Rich asked him about his boyfriend. Jeremy, who wasn't his boyfriend, was bound to have the other half, and he would get weird sometimes about being mistaken for Michael’s boyfriend. “No! I like girls! A girl! I like someone and it’s not Michael, not like I don’t like Michael—” he would stammer. Jeremy wanted to date Christine. Michael could deal with that.

As he continued with his day Michael decided to treat himself to some 7-eleven instead of cafeteria food. Gas station sushi—risky, but an adventure and delicious in its own right. He had also established a rapport with the girl who worked there, and she would “accidentally” overfill his slushy as he updated her on high school gossip. Why she wanted to know this Michael didn’t bother questioning, but he was happy to make shitty small talk if it meant he got free food. She didn’t act weird when he wouldn’t take his headphones off to talk to her, either. Maybe it was the customer service behaviour, but she was cool. College kids were cool.

“Michael!”

Oh! Excitement ran through him (to a recognisably silly extent) as he heard his name called. Michael felt himself perk up at Jeremy’s voice, and he spun around the see his best friend.

“Jeremy, my buddy! How’s it hanging?”

Once again, he refused to take his headphones off, especially because the song wasn’t done; he could hear Jeremy talking to him over the music.

“You’re listening to Bob Marley again, aren’t you?”

“I am!”

Jeremy could tell by the way Michael’s voice turned singsong. Jeremy also had his “feeling weird” face on, which Michael could tell. He showed all his emotions on his face very blatantly, it was very nice. Maybe that’s why he and Michael were friends? Other people’s emotions are hard to see and then he messed up talking to them because they forgot to tell him that they didn’t want to talk about Bob Marley for forty minutes. Jeremy’s were almost easy, though. He would also say things like “Please stop talking about Bob Marley.” when he didn’t want to talk about Bob Marley anymore, which helps too. That’s the sort of thing a good friend does.

“How was class? You look like ass. What’s wrong?”

Why was it always Bob Marley? Did he really talk about Bob Marley that much? He pondered it for a few seconds before remembering that he had asked Jeremy a question.

“BOYF. What does that even mean?”

He turned his own backpack around absentmindedly, showing off Rich’s handiwork.

“Boyfriends.”

“I hate this school.”

Michael stared at him for a moment, Jeremy’s face went bright red as he shoved it into the back of his knapsack. He quickly changed the topic over to Christine. Jeremy talked about Christine like Michael talked about Bob Marley, he decided. (Although he was sure he talked about other artists too. It couldn’t just be Bob Marley.)

“I wrote Christine a letter telling her how I feel.”

“That’s progress!”

“I tore it up and flushed it… That’s still progress.”

He decided to tell Jeremy about the documentary he watched the previous night on Discovery about evolution and technology. He didn’t completely understand it, but it seemed like a good enough excuse to cheer up his friend. He interrupted him though, and it threw Michael off for a moment. He was confused what the school play had to do with his evolution ramble.

“I was gonna say ‘getting stoned in my basement’, but—”

“No, I mean, look who’s signing up for the school play.”

Michael glanced over his shoulder to where Jeremy had gestured, and he saw Christine at the signup sheet. A short, cute girl. He hadn’t talked to her much, but in all honesty, he hadn’t talked to most of the juniors at Middleborough. He began to suggest to Jeremy that he sign up, but Jeremy gave him a “one moment” finger as he bounced on his heels and wandered over before Michael finished talking. He had probably already thought about it.

“Gay!”

Rich shouted from somewhere across the hall, and Michael gave him a quick glance. It was meant to be a glare, but he wasn’t sure that it showed on his face properly. Some students around Rich laughed at his “funny joke”, but the majority didn’t react much. Not as if those who didn't laugh stood out to Jeremy at all.

Before long, lunch was over, and Michael was on his way to his next class, parting with Jeremy. He knew Jeremy was in a mood today, whatever the adjective to describe the mood was, but he figured he could deal with it after school. He was going to go over to his place anyways, he could deal with it then. After play rehearsal. As he walked into English, it occurred to him that he was going to be expected to drive Jeremy home. Of course, he proceeded to wish he had driven to school, because now he had to endure Jeremy’s Car Conversation again while he complained about walking and being sweaty. He loved him though.

Class was fine.


	2. Act One - Scene Two - I Love Play Rehearsal

After school that day Michael just wanted to go home. High school was so much, too much to handle for more than the seven hours he was required to be there. He said he’d meet Jeremy though, so he did. And there he was. Standing outside the auditorium. When Jeremy locked eyes with him, he hop-stepped over in the way Jeremy does when he’s excited, and Michael waved at him.

“I- I don’t know if I’m going to do this.”

Michael was pretty sure he was going to do this.

“Why?”

“I don’t know. I guess evolution’s not for everyone.”

“You don’t have to do this. Of course, I’ll mock you forever if you don’t.”

Jeremy just looked at him with contemplation for a moment, and Michael caught himself making the same tense expression back at him. Jeremy shook himself off and bounced in place for a moment, then decided, waved goodbye to Michael, and turned back to face play rehearsal.

Michael was at a loss for a moment, then he pulled out his headphones. Music. Music, music, music. Good times. He sat there, outside of the auditorium, bobbing his head and rocking back and forth as the school dimmed from the lack of light outside. At some point it occurred to him that he could have walked home and got his car, avoiding Jeremy’s rant, but by the time it crossed his mind he decided it was too late and Jeremy would be out of rehearsal soon. Jeremy’s opinions on "cool" were interesting, anyways, even if Michael didn’t really understand.

Did Jeremy sign up for rehearsal because he liked acting or because he wanted to talk to Christine? He couldn’t decide which was more likely. Jeremy told Michael once that he didn’t sign up for plays anymore because it wasn’t cool. Jake Dillinger was in this play though, which seemed odd, because as far as Michael knew Jake Dillinger was known to be super cool. Was Christine cool?

Michael could pin things that fit Jeremy’s definition of cool most of the time, but it didn’t match Michael’s. Apparently, Jeremy wasn’t cool. Neither was Michael. If you asked Michael though, Jeremy was the coolest. He bought him an awesome alarm clock. He was an incredible actor! Together they bumped their high score on horde in Apocalypse of the Damned almost every week. That’s cool!


	3. Act One - Scene Three - Squip

“Hey, I’m just gonna run to the bathroom, I’ll be right back.”

Michael didn’t notice Jeremy until he was already passing him by, so he just waved in response. Not quite what a wave normally means, but Jeremy got the point and nodded in return.

He took a strangely long time in the washroom. In the meantime, Michael saw Christine talking to Jake Dillinger. He considered trying to join the conversation, but he was pretty sure neither of them actually knew who he was. He also didn’t know if that’s a thing people are allowed to do, so he decided to forget about it. He wasn’t going to go out of his way to make people think he was a weirdo.

Then he blinked. Then Jeremy was back.

“Hey. You took a really long time.”

“You shouldn't tell people that. But yeah. I— Um, it was weird. I’ll explain later.”


	4. Act One - Scene Four - Two Player Game

“Seriously, dude, what’s your problem! You should drive to school. It’s cool. Taking the bus’d be weak but why would you walk? You can drive! Plus, I’m all gross now.”

Tick, tick, and tick. The conversation went almost identically to what Michael had imagined; he was grinning.

“What are you smiling at?”

“I love ya.”

“Wha—Yeah. Yeah, you’re my best friend, dude. I’m not actually mad. I just think you need—you could be cooler.”

“Like 20% cooler?”

“Fucking– I was twelve. You have to stop using that against me.”

Jeremy dropped his bag and launched himself into the blue beanbag in one swift action, and Michael followed suit, dropping onto the red one on the ground in front of Jeremy’s TV. Colour coded. Jeremy is blue, Michael is red. Like player icons.

“Apocalypse of the Damned?”

“The Cafetorium! So. I know already this isn't a thing I should ask, but you said you'd tell me what happened in the washroom.”

Jeremy explained himself—Rich had cornered him in the washroom and ranted about some super computer drugs from Japan that made you cool. It was the most Jeremy-targeted scam that had ever been manifested. How many times did Jeremy say cool in a day? He wondered if it could be more than he mentioned Christine. Maybe it was even more than Michael talked about music.

“So, what do you think?”

“He’s scamming you. He’s scamming you super weirdly.”

At first Jeremy didn't agree, but once it occurred to him who had told him about this magic computer he started to frown.

“I’m doomed to be a loser ’til the end of the world. No, probably then too.”

“No way, dude, you’re cooler than, like…”

Michael struggled to come up with something nearly as cool as Jeremy. Video games? Vinyl albums? Cassettes? Yeah. Cassettes. Jeremy is as cool as cassette tapes.

“It’s just that no one but me thinks that yet.”

He continued to spout the things he loved about Jeremy. He knew for a fact that Jeremy was the coolest guy he knew, why else would Michael hang out with him? He has a bias, sure, he doesn’t talk to other people, but he doesn’t have to! One friend is enough, especially when that friend is perfect. Everyone has their flaws, but Jeremy’s flaws don’t clash with Michael’s. In fact, they complement each other.

When Jeremy can’t order food at a restaurant, Michael will order for both. When Michael doesn’t understand a joke, Jeremy will explain it later. They world is a two-player game, and they’re going to win it.

“Plus, guys like us are cool in college.”

“We’re not in college.”

“All the same. High school’s wack, but we have each other. We’ll get through it.”

They had failed to beat the “The Cafetorium” level of Apocalypse of the Damned three times now, but each time they failed they just started it again. Standard procedure. If only the topic holding Jeremy’s attention wasn’t straight out of a teen dystopian mind control fiction drama.

Eventually Jeremy’s dad knocked on the door to his bedroom and they had to stop playing. The pause startled Michael a bit, he was somewhat too focused and didn’t hear Mr. Heere coming.

His dad asked Jeremy if he had a girl over, a question Michael heard an inordinate amount, but he was never the addressee, always the “girl” in question. No, he had the honour of his mother regularly asking if he and Jeremy were dating instead. “Oh, but he’s such a nice boy. Make sure when you find yourself a partner he’s as nice as Jeremy.” It was better than the alternative, he figured.

Mr. Heere wasn’t wearing pants. He rarely was, lately, since Jeremy’s mom left. Michael didn’t know her very well, she was never home when Michael was over, which sort of implied she was a bit of a cryptid in general. Michael was worried for him, he couldn’t imagine how either of his moms would deal with a similar situation. He was worried for Jeremy too, who didn’t seem to want to talk about his mom. Or his dad for that matter.

Jeremy dodged his dad’s head pat, and decided to ignore an offer for pizza, so Michael could sense that there was something uncomfortable in his midst. Jeremy didn’t want to deal with those emotions right now though, so Michael was prepared to move on. But Jeremy did want to talk about brain robots.

“Rich said his hook-up’s at the Payless, what if we go there ourselves? Just to see if his story checks out?”

He decided to humor Jeremy. He agreed.

“And if it does? Will you be to cool for… video games?”

Would he be too cool for Michael? That wasn’t the question he asked though. That was a little too confrontational, even for him. The sort of question there’s only one answer you’d ever get because no one would ever say “Yes, I would be too cool for you, Michael. I’d never talk to you if I didn’t have to.” Even if it were true. It wasn’t though, Michael was pretty sure of that. Twelve years is a long time.

“No way.”

Good. He was reassured. Jeremy would never be too cool for video games. They then proceeded to share a moderately heartwarming declaration of their favourite people: each other. Michael mocked him for it, but he was happy. It was great.

“Hey, we have to walk to your house to get your car now. Why can’t you please just drive places like a normal teenager obsessed with owning a car?”

“Why don’t you pass your fuckin’ driving test and do it yourself?”

“Hey—”

Jeremy was a good friend. A cool friend. A friend of twelve years who would be a friend for twelve, twenty, thirty, infinite more.


	5. Act One - Scene Five - The Squip Enters

He had been so revved up half an hour ago, but now Jeremy radiated nervousness. There was only one other person in the Payless Shoes, and it was the guy at the register, watching Michael and Jeremy while Jeremy “nonchalantly” picked up pair after pair of children’s size three light up sneakers.

“Go talk to him if you’re gonna.”

“I have no idea how to do this.”

The way he spoke was as if it hadn’t occurred to him how wild his premise was. Michael shrugged and turned Jeremy toward the guy, giving him a quick pat on the back to usher him forward.

“I like your sideburns. Wolverine, right?”

No, Jeremy. Michael was rarely nervous the same way Jeremy was: always anxious. Michael was more of a meltdown person. Panic attacks. Overloads. Jeremy was steadier, always just a little more nervous than he should be. Or a lot more, sometimes it seemed, but it was still a very stable emotional state. Michael contemplated what that’s like as Jeremy talked to the cashier.

He wanted to be deeper in his tangential thought process than he was, though, because it was almost embarrassing how very badly Jeremy didn’t understand how to engage with the guy, even though he had picked up what Jeremy wanted (strangely enough). He was doing worse than Michael, and even Michael himself knew that that was a feat.

Instead of contemplating Jeremy’s social anxiety in an abstract sense as he would have preferred, Michael spent his time staring aggressively at Jeremy, attempting the telepathic transferal of details regarding how to interact with a dealer. And Michael was no expert on interaction. Or explanation. Or telepathy.

If this “squip” thing was legitimate, it’d probably be better at telepathic explanations. Man, Michael would have loved that at family dinners, or really, basically to interact with anyone ever. Other people are hard to work with. He and Jeremy agreed on that much. He also started to understand why Jeremy wanted to believe in the magic pill. Par of him kind of wanted it himself.

Soon enough, Jeremy had a big grin on his face and went bouncing back towards Michael, who was then staring absently at the flashing sneakers in his hands. He held up what looked like a pill, about the size of a tic-tac and grey.

“We gotta grab some Mountain Dew, then I’m on the train to Cool Ville.”


	6. Act One - Scene Six - Be More Chill

The mall was loud. That meant headphones on, hood up. Michael didn’t like places like malls, but everyone has to go to a mall sometimes. In this case it was for Jeremy, but since he was already there Michael couldn’t stop thinking about stopping buy Spencer’s Gifts. The store was a hellish experience to be in, but it had the greatest things. Jeremy was staring at his pill.

“I hope you’re worth four hundred dollars.”

“Four hundred and one. Don’t forget the Mountain Dew.”

He was joking, but Michael was a little nervous. If this did work, how much would change? He wanted to be convinced it wouldn’t work. But what if it did? Jeremy offered to split it with him. Michael did not have the capacity to make that decision as fast as he was required.

“I don’t think it works like that. Besides, I like knowing that when you’re cool, you’ll owe me.”

“All right. Here goes… everything.”

The moment was highly anticlimactic. Apparently, the pill was minty. Jeremy wasn’t cooler though. Poor guy, Michael felt a little bad, but at the same time, it was way too sci-fi to be real. For every second that passed, it became increasingly obvious that it was nonsensical. It would have been buck wild had it been real. He was caught in the moment. Jeremy wanted to be left alone. Michael could work with that.

“Five minutes.”

“Where are you going?”

He explained his cool hook up for Crystal Pepsi at Spencer’s Gifts. Michael had no desire to live in the 90’s, he preferred “as close to a perfectly just future utopia as possible”, but he would love if the aesthetic of the 1990s and prior could be a permanent staple in his life. Pogs. Video game consoles that showed off the hardware inside them. Clear Pepsi. That was the coolest shit.

Michael waved to his friend as he took off, and boy was that something he would regret. Maybe if he had been there about two minutes longer things would have gone differently. Would he have picked up that something bad was going to happen? Lost his best friend, his player two, his crush? — It didn’t matter. That was the first of several bad decisions Michael made. And he lost his favourite person.

At the time, the Crystal Pepsi was cool.


	7. Interlude I

When Michael got back to the food court, Jeremy was gone. He took a seat with his pop and waited around for a while. He had taken longer than he thought—he said five minutes, it was more like fifteen. Was that relevant? Maybe he wandered off, bored of waiting. He sent off a quick text, but no response. Whatever, he figured, he’d be back soon.

Except he wasn’t. Michael sat there for forty minutes, until the mall closed. It was weird. He’d ask where he went later, and headed home by himself.


	8. Act One - Scene Seven - More than Survive (Reprise)

Normal day so far. His alarm went off in the morning, he slapped it to make it stop. (Still a classic and wonderful trait.) He dragged himself out of bed like any day. He brushed his teeth like any day.

Michael contemplated driving to school just to appease Jeremy. They could go out for lunch, his treat. Make up for Jeremy’s burnt four hundred dollars. That sounded good. Headphones on, music blaring, he drove to school.

He got to school early (Thanks, cars.) and wasn't sure what to do with himself, so he decided to stop by Jeremy’s locker to ask him about lunch, but he wasn’t in the area. He headed back to his own to sit down. No use going to class early, he figured. He sat listening to tunes and staring at his own hands as he clenched and unclenched them to the tune of his song for about twenty minutes, trying to stop himself from picking at the nail polish. It was all nice right now. That was where his thoughts were until Jeremy finally passes by, approaching the stairs.

“Jeremy!”

He called for him and waved, to get his attention. It didn’t, though, he was distracted. He was also grinning in his Jeremy way, clearly involved in his own thoughts. Michael decided seeing him later would be good enough, so he left him be. Class was minutes away anyways.

Later though, he started to feel almost queasy when he saw Jeremy and Rich talking at lunch. Rich had a pretty long running streak of tormented him and Jeremy. Why would they be chatting like they’re friends? He wasn’t sure, but Michael did do a project with Rich once in grade nine science on blood cells. He was like a completely different person then, but it proved there was someone who was at least once moderately pleasant beneath the disgusting behaviour. Or so he thought, because when he had told Jeremy last year about his experiences with Rich, he said that he didn’t go to Middleborough in freshman year. It was believable, too, because the kid he did the project with had glasses and a lisp and introduced himself as Ricky, which did seem very counterintuitive to Michael’s understanding of who Rich was.

Either way, whether Ricky from Grade Nine Science and Rich the Teenage Bully were the same person or not, Jeremy was talking to an asshole who Michael didn’t want to talk to. So he decided to sit and wait for Jeremy to approach him.

But once again, to Michael’s surprise, he didn’t. In fact, he walked right past Michael’s table to leave the cafeteria. What the fuck? Was he being avoided?

Michael was very confused, unnaturally worried, and extraordinarily distracted for the rest of the day.

Class wasn’t quite as fine.


	9. Act One - Scene Eight - A Guy That I'd Kinda Be Into

To Michael, the definition of being ignored could mean a few things. First, it could be someone not being where they normally would be when you go looking for them. This isn’t on purpose most of the time and if it is it’s called avoidance, so Michael ranks it lowest on the list. Jeremy had done this five times in the last three days.

Second, it could be not responding to a text that prompts conversation. Sometimes this also isn’t on purpose, so it is also a low form of being ignored. Jeremy had done this six times in the last three days.

Third, it could be not responding to a question asked through text. This is more urgent than not making conversation. Especially when the question is “Are you okay?” or “Do you hate me?”. Jeremy had done this four times in the last three days.

Fourth, it could be not meeting where you would normally meet, like every single day. Without fail. Jeremy had done this three times in the last three days.

Last, it could be straight up fucking walking right past you while you try to grab their attention. You call their name from down a hallway and they don’t respond. You wave at them and yell, probably too loud, every time you see them. And they just pretend your shitty ass doesn’t even exist. Jeremy had done this four times.

Over the next three days, after being ignored by Jeremy a grand total of twenty-two times (Michael counted.), he decided to confront the situation head on. He made his second decision: he was going to grab Jeremy after play rehearsal and ask him what the hell was happening.

He sat in the same place as he had a few days before, although he was in an incredibly different headspace. It’s astounding what a day can do, especially when the only person you have any interest in suddenly decides to never talk to you again. What the hell! He couldn’t tell if he was angry or sad or stressed or if maybe he was just making it all up anyways.

Jeremy left play rehearsal before it was over. He looked very determined, as if wherever he was going was the most important place in the world, or that the most important thing was to no longer be in the auditorium.

“Jeremy. Jeremy!”

Not even a doubletake. Twenty-three. Suddenly, all Michael’s angry bravado vanished. He was just sad.

“Fine. What the fuck.”

He headed back to his locker to grab his bag.


	10. Act One - Scene Nine - Upgrade

As Michael returned to his locker he was met with Christine and Jake Dillinger hovering somewhat too close for it to be okay for Michael to approach. He could hear that they were flirting, or at least Jake Dillinger was. In an instinctual response, he felt bad for Jeremy for a moment, but then he remembered he was mad at Jeremy. Stupid Jeremy. He hoped Christine accepted the date invite.

Except he didn’t. He wanted Jeremy to be happy. Even if that happiness didn’t involve Michael. God, that made him sad. That was an awful thought.

Michael had swerved into the washrooms, to wait out Jake and Christine’s presence by his locker, but his head was swirling with so many thoughts he thought he might pass out. His throat was tight. He decided to just leave and get his backpack tomorrow. He knew he had to just accept his fate and move on, because every single time he thought too hard about what was going on between him and Jeremy he started to feel dizzy and sick. Except he didn’t, and he kept thinking about it. Like now. Headphones on. Hood up. It was time to get out of that building.

Nothing could go as planned, though, and staring at the floor while he walked instead of looking where he was going was not an ideal battle strategy. He walked right into someone, and he didn’t have the capacity to deal with that. Then it was Jeremy that he bumped into. He especially couldn't do that right now. He wanted to go home.

“Michael? Oh my god, I’m so glad to see you!”

It surprised him, it was Jeremey talking to him. It was Jeremy being happy to see him! He gave in and took a deep breath. Jeremy started it. He could have this conversation.

“Really? So, you haven’t been avoiding me?”

“What are you talking about? I haven’t even seen you since—”

He cut himself off. Michael felt giddy. He felt like he might faint, but he couldn’t tell why anymore. He wanted Jeremy to explain himself, but maybe not seeing him is all the explaining there was to do. It wasn't a satisfying answer, and it was confusing. Michael was confused. Could that really be the case? It was unlikely, Michael had made himself very visible and had seen Jeremy plenty of times. But he wanted to ignore that. If the last three days could just go away, Michael would jump at the opportunity, even if he blacked out while doing so. Jeremy was deep in thought.

“Jeremy? Why are you standing there all creepy and stuff?”

Jeremy doesn’t respond. Michael was feeling worse again. Why would he get Michael's hopes up if he wasn't going to talk to him anyways?

“Seriously, what’s up with you? You’ve been acting shady ever since…”

Half way through his sentence, a lot of events clicked together in Michael’s head. Jeremy disappeared right after he ate the squip at the mall. Jeremy seemed like he was in his own little world for the past few days. He talked to Rich, the one who told Jeremy about the squip. Rich was Ricky. This was the squip. It had worked. Now he was excited.

“It worked, didn’t it? Jeremy, that’s amazing! We gotta test it, we gotta celebrate, we gotta– get stoned in my basement!”

Michael was so happy for his friend. No wonder he was distracted, he probably had a bunch of "cool" things to take care of before he could really kick it off. Was that feasible? Michael tried to avoid questioning it.

With a wave of his hand urging Jeremy to follow, Michael hop-stepped onward, desperately hoping Jeremy would take the offer. If Jeremy followed, that would mean that this week sucked. Michael overreacted. The nagging feeling that he was going to throw up or faint was just caused by fluke.

The mood only lasted for a second, though, because as soon as he didn’t respond Michael knew something was wrong. The computer in Jeremy’s brain was telling him something that Michael wasn’t allowed to know, and then Jeremy sneered. Michael stopped moving, and rocked back and forth on his heels.

“Jeremy? Are you coming?”

One last try. One last chance to make this not the worst day ever. But it failed, and Jeremy didn’t even look at him as he shoved by Michael and walked away.

It took Michael an hour, sat curled up in his car in the dark before he felt steady enough to drive.


	11. Interlude II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw for mentions of self harm. it's not intentional self harm, its self injurious stimming

Michael missed school the next day. He also missed school the following day, and the day after that. It wasn’t entirely that he was upset about Jeremy, but it was a little bit. Mostly.

He was so stressed out that his thoughts were just shapes and colours and emotions attacking him from all angles. He had come home that night with his headphones on, tears in his eyes, and scratches on his arms.

“Michael! Are you okay?”

His mum called for him, but he barely heard her before stampeding to his bedroom. He’d never been good at managing stress. The next morning, his mama woke him up. His alarm clock wasn’t on his side table. His parents took it out of his room while he was asleep. They did that for him sometimes, if they thought it was going to overwhelm him. He didn't have the capacity to turn the alarm off the night before.

“Are you going to school today, sweetie?”

She spoke softly, and didn’t turn on Michael’s light, which he was incredibly thankful for. He was also incredibly thankful she wasn’t bothered when he didn’t reply. He was too busy analysing the texture of his blankets to think words, or even parse hers for that matter. The best way he could describe his feelings was as a puddle, but a very tired puddle. Any heightened and sharp emotion he had, anxiety, fear, anger, was gone. All that was left was a feeling of sadness and dread and an overwhelming feeling of "too much". He was very tired. And dehydrated.

“Alright. Feel better, Mikey.”

That had been the closest to talking to someone he was that day. The next day, he came out of his room, but not until about two in the afternoon. His mama greeted him, asked if he was doing alright, but he only made a soft noise in response. He and his mama watched old Star Trek episodes in silence, until Michael finally put together what he wanted to say.

“Jeremy won’t—wouldn’t talk to me.”

“Is that what set you off?”

“No. Um. Yes. Yeah.”

“Did something happen between you two?”

Michael couldn’t answer that one. His mama was patient, smiling at him while they watched Kirk flail around “heroically” on screen. She nodded thoughtfully. Michael wondered how much she understood.

On the third day, Michael's mum woke him up in the morning. She spoke softly, but sternly, telling Michael it was time to get ready for school, and that she would give him a ride. He did not want to deal with school, but when he asked his mama if he could have one more day, she just looked at him. He knew the lack of response meant no, so he went to school that day. Except he knew he couldn't, and therefore didn’t. He didn’t have permission from his parents for that one, but it had to be done.

He chewed his nails, didn’t take his headphones off, and tried to navigate the day.


	12. Interlude III

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning: super vague mention of self harm again. jsyk

Michael spent his days in a way very reminiscent of elementary school, when none of your friends are in the same class as you, so you may as well not be friends. Except when Michael was in elementary school, he still hung out with Jeremy sometimes, even when they were in different classes. It may as well have been required, neither of them had other friends.

Now, he just made his way, class to class, occasionally seeing Jeremy in the halls. He was dating Brooke Lohst from Physics now, not Christine, which Michael couldn’t help feeling somewhat gross about. Jeremy at least liked Christine, but he’d never mentioned Brooke Lohst before. Michael only knew who she was because she was popular and she now gave him pity glances in the halls because she knew Michael used to be Jeremy's friend. He wondered what Jeremy told her. On the other hand, he knew who Christine was because Jeremy couldn’t stop talking about her for a solid year. Very different. Did the squip get him over her? Or did the squip make him date Brooke instead? How much of it was Jeremy? Was he alright?

On the up side, Rich was leaving Michael alone, something about “not pushing Jeremy’s buttons”, he said once to Michael, in the washroom. Speaking of washrooms, they were apparently a chaotic place, because they tended to be Michael’s best chance to interact with Jeremy, in some way, shape, or form. It always went the same, though. Jeremy didn’t even look at him, but Michael said hey anyways. No response. Michael would ask him a question. He wouldn’t respond. Michael wondered if Jeremy even knew he was there. He kind of hoped that he didn’t, because if he didn't, he could blame the squip. Jeremy might not be choosing to passively ruin Michael's life.

After three weeks post-Jeremy, Michael was getting irritable and restless, along with slurry of other lonely, bored teenager idiosyncrasies. He wanted to do something, do anything, but he had no friends. He had no friends! People don’t have to like him, he thought, but it would be nice to not feel bored and sad and self deprecating all the time. He had to keep his nails short if he was going to feel bad that often, and he didn’t like keeping them short. It felt weird. Plus, he had watched way too much TV. He had seen the majority of the Star Trek series, including animated, as hard as it was to parse. He was also on season four of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and had recently decided to try watching the Star Wars movies, something many people got mad at him for never seeing as a child. He had a similar experience with Harry Potter, which he was thinking of trying out next. That was, if he continued to not have friends, which was likely.

In those three weeks he also noticed that Jeremy did very non-Jeremy things. Like wear Eminem tee shirts. And draw on other kids’ lockers. And date girls. And flirt with other girls. (While dating girls!)

After enough emotions had bombarded him for long enough, Michael decided to act. It hadn’t gone well for him last time he decided to act, but then again, he gave up before he acted. He made his third decision, and researched the squip more than he had researched anything he had ever learnt about before. This search yielded virtually nothing, but he did gain roughly four pieces of information, varying in usefulness.

The first was that squips were not searchable. This was obvious, but it was also wicked annoying and super suspicious. The second was that beanie babies were worth a lot of money. The third was that one of his Warcraft guild members' brother had a squip, and he ended up in a mental hospital. The fourth, and probably most important, was that squips were deactivated with Mountain Dew Red, which was both released and discontinued in 1988. Aside from his first two pieces of information, Michael had a total of one source, an anecdotal email. It was the only source that provided even a glimpse at anything worthwhile, though, and god he hoped it was true.

It seemed ridiculous, but so did the whole fiasco. He called the Spencer’s Gifts at Menlo Park Mall and hoped.


	13. Act Two - Scene One - Halloween

Halloween. It was on a Sunday, so all the parties were happening on Halloween Eve. Michael couldn't stop thinking about Halloween being called All Hallow's Eve, because this made Halloween Eve known as All Hallow's Eve Eve. Was All Hallow's Eve an eve before a day? All Hallow's Day? Micheal didn't know much of what Halloween meant historically or religiously, but he knew that this Halloween was going to be widely celebrated on Halloween Eve.

The Halloween Eve parties Michael knew about included that of Jake Dillinger, which is why on the afternoon of Halloween Eve Michael stood outside a costume shop, having just purchased a mask and claw combination, perfect for people who don’t like to try while dressing up for Halloween. Because Jeremy was going to Jake Dillinger's Halloween party that night, so so was Michael. He had to enact his plan.

Michael didn’t want to look too obviously like himself, so he didn’t wear his big red sweater. This made him feel disgustingly naked, so he replaced it with a big black sweater. He also wore shorts, which didn’t help with the disgustingly naked feeling. Neither did leaving his headphones and backpack at home.

He drove to the party with a $260 dollar box of twelve thirty year old pops and sense of bravery and motivation that he hadn’t felt since his first attempt at confronting Jeremy almost a month ago, but this time he had a game plan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> how expensive do you think old pop from 1988 is? probably expensive, right? its low supply but is it maybe in really high demand?


	14. Act Two - Scene Two - Do You Wanna Hang?

Michael felt like he was going to die within thirty seconds of entering the party. He was going to either scream or faint or legitimately die, because he couldn’t handle normal fucking things like more than five people in a room and loud music and the smell—god the smell made him sick. The smell of weed and cigarettes and alcohol, all mixed together like some sort of Bad Decision perfume.

Other than the number of people, Michael liked the components of a party in moderation. But all at the same time he felt like he was gonna collapse. He also regretfully decided consuming alcohol while breaking down was going to be an alright thing to do, which it absolutely was not. It just made all his emotions glow brighter and more suffocating.

Michael had seen Jeremy and Jake dancing together shortly after he got there, but he lost Jeremy almost immediately in the haze and busyness.

Jenna Rolan, gossip girl and friend of Brooke Lohst's as far as he was aware, saw Michael standing against a wall at one point in the evening and gave him the dirtiest look Michael could fathom her making. Jake Dillinger also saw him, but looked more confused and sick than anything else. Mostly people weren't talking to him, which he was incredibly grateful for. He had been bumped and jostled far too many times for cool and confident collectedness, though.

At one point in the night while looking for Jeremy, a girl who introduced herself as Nicole approached him. As far as Michael knew, he had never seen before in his life despite her assurance that she went to Middleborough. Michael was not convinced. Michael was also not in the mood to be flirted at. Plus, if she did go to Middleborough, she wouldn’t be talking to him, so she was obviously lying. People from school didn’t talk to Michael.

It was too bad that he was both entirely overwhelmed and not into girls, because in some other place she would make a good friend, and in some other universe she would make a nice girlfriend. She was pretty, and she was really into music too. She was smart, and showed a lot of passion for what she was talking about. But she was also very drunk, and so was Michael, and Michael was too gay and overstimulated to deal with her for very long. He recited her number to himself for a while before never getting a chance to jot it down.

Michael was about to check upstairs for Jeremy when he finally lost it. After Rich grabbed his shoulder from behind, Michael shouted and yanked his arm away as he started backing up the stairs.

“God—Stop fucking touching me!”

“Whoa. Got any Mountain Dew Red?”

Rich did not react as Michael would have expected, but he also wasn’t listening. He stormed up the staircase before Rich got a word in, and he slammed the door on the washroom, sat in the bathtub, closed the curtains, and waited.


	15. Act Two - Scene Three - Michael in the Bathroom

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw for self harm (self injurious stimming again) and vague suicide ideation

After sitting in the bathtub for a while, Michael realised that it wasn’t as bad in there. The bathroom muffled most of the rest of the house, and it also worked to his advantage, because now Jeremy could come to him. Everyone uses the washroom eventually. Jeremy especially, he had a tiny bladder. Not even the squip could control his need to pee all the time. At least as far as Michael assumed.

People noticed the door was unlocked soon after Michael stampeded in there, and it was a pretty terrifying experience on Michael’s end, sitting through countless people using the washroom, knowing if he was found he’d be accused of stalking. Everyone thought he was a creepy weirdo anyways, he didn't need to provide proof.

No one noticed him though.

And his plan worked. Sort of.

Michael didn’t have a firm grasp of how long he had been in the washroom when Jeremy sprinted in at top speed, slammed into the far wall, ran back, locked the door, and sat on the edge of the tub. But that did eventually happen.

He grabbed Jeremy, to make sure he didn’t try to leave, but he yelped in response. In retrospect he realised that was a frightening thing to do, but he didn’t have time in the moment to deal with it. It was also strange because yelping, and sprinting into a washroom at top speed, were not Jeremy-defined cool things to do. They probably weren't squip-defined cool things either.

“’Sup.”

“Michael? I didn’t know you were invited to this party.”

They stared at each other confounded for a couple seconds, and suddenly Michael felt the faint feeling come back. Jeremy saw him, and responded to him, for the first time in almost a month.

He couldn’t help but be somewhat agitated by all that was going on, but he certainly didn’t help the situation. He also failed to consider that Jeremy might have been not completely in control of what he did and didn’t do at the squip’s command. But the squip was off, and Michael lashed out. He had scripted what he would say, but his ability to make words was breaking down as they came out of his mouth, and he did his best to explain what his research yielded: Nothing. Jeremy didn't understand that that meant something.

He wanted to warn Jeremy of what trouble the squip might cause him, explain to him the contents of his one anecdotal, maybe true email his Warcraft guild mate sent him. Explain to him he could help him get the squip out, if he came with Michael, they could leave and get the Mountain Dew Red from Michael’s car and it could all go back to normal.

But it wasn’t enough for Jeremy, and of his own accord, no squip, no nothing, Jeremy shoved him aside.

“Get out of my way. Loser.”

Michael had held himself together very well up to this point of the night. Even considering his small lash out at Rich, he had been proud of himself. But after his conversation with Jeremy, he broke again. He felt awful. Any lies he had been telling himself about Jeremy's avoidance fell moot, because there was no way to blame the squip. All Jeremy. Loser. Loser!

It didn’t help that by this point other people wanted in the washroom, and Michael had no tolerance for this. He sat on the floor, rocking back and forth, and went to grab at his headphones. He couldn't help but whimper when they weren't there. Bad choice. Bad decision. The knocking was getting more aggressive the longer he waited. Or did it just sound louder? Everything sounded louder. He couldn’t tell if it was in his head or not. He couldn’t handle it. He bit his tongue, closed his eyes and covered his ears, and curled up as small as he could make himself. When that wasn’t enough to make it quieter he resorted to hitting his head with his balled-up fists.

Michael was dying. He could tell, this was what death feels like. You can’t breathe, and all sounds are three hundred million times louder and you’re crying and people outside are yelling at you and you’re hurting yourself even though you don’t mean too but there’s nothing else you can do.

And people like him, people who can’t tell when they’re hurting themselves and can’t tell when people are joking and don’t know what’s cool and don’t know how to not be weird and can’t make words when they’re upset, and smoke weed alone in their basement and don’t have friends and drive a PT cruiser and have panic attacks in the washrooms at a Halloween parties they weren’t invited to—those people are losers. Those people deserve to die. Michael deserves to die. He should have killed himself before now. At least he was dying now.

Except he wasn’t dying. It was an awful night, but he wasn’t dying. It took laying on the floor thinking he was dying for about fifteen minutes then later splashing water in his face from a sink that reeked of vomit, but he did eventually realise he wasn’t dying. He kind of still felt like he should have been dying, and his tongue and the palms of his hands were bleeding, and he was still crying on a washroom floor, but he eventually stopped dying. And people eventually stopped knocking.

And then, in an anticlimactic end to his heinous night, Michael sneaked out of the washroom. He took one last look at Jeremy on the couch with Christine, swallowed hard, and walked out of the party. He took his overdramatic performance, Halloween mask, and drunken mess home. He left behind his pride, though.


	16. Act Two - Scene Four - It's Kinda Killer to Sit and Chat With You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> rambling about chapter titles: act one scene three is the squip song but it's called the squip song, and i didn't want to call a chapter that. so i just called it squip. you will see that again with act two scene seven. act one scene five doesn't have a song, just a verse of the squip song. so i took the squip enters even though it's in scene six and not really a song, since scene six's relevant piece is be more chill. but i'm grumpy because act two scene four doesn't have a song either, it's a reprise of a bit of a guy that i'd kinda be into, so i just used the first line of it? sure. it kinda works. idk.

Michael’s palms stung while he drove home, except he’d done it before. In fact, he associated driving home with stinging palms recently. He rarely drove anywhere lately, so the last couple of times he had done it were leaching his opinion on driving even further into the depths of hell than they already sat. He should have cut his nails, had less bravado going in to his failed expedition.

Some part of Michael was expecting this, he could tell because his emotions turned back to being sharp and aggressive much faster than they had when Jeremy started ignoring him. Less puddle-y. This was his life now, sporadic communication with Jeremy in washrooms.

He couldn’t help but wonder what Jeremy was getting up to those days. He wondered if he ever mentioned Michael.

On Sunday morning Michael felt sick to his stomach and achy and awful. Not as if a hangover wasn’t enough as is, he had been crying way too much for how little water he drank. The power of the hangover also tells him he was way too drunk to be driving the night before, and immediately feels terrified for his past self and those around him.

“Hey, pumpkin, feeling better?”

His mama greets him as he leaves his room in the morning. He was doing better than he did last time he had a giant meltdown over Jeremy, but he was not feeling great. This time was also featuring a hangover. Hangovers hurt.

“I shouldn’t drive.”

“Why do you say that, Mikey?”

“I’m pretty sure driving means I’m gonna hurt myself.”

She looked at Michael, confused, but Michael wasn’t watching closely enough to tell. He was staring at the corner of the kitchen, trying to decide whether to focus on googling how to cure a hangover or how to best go about making a new best friend. He hadn’t made new friends before, and he’d been friends with Jeremy since they were four. They didn’t really make friends, it just happened. Were there dating sites for friends? Did they work? Hangovers hurt. He wanted to not have a hangover. He also wanted to stop thinking about his hangover.

“If you want to talk about it you have to tell me more, bud. I don’t get it.”

“I scratched my hands.”

“Aw, Michael.”

“Also, Jeremy hates me.”

His mother spared him the rant he’d heard several times before, about how to know when you’re clenching your fists to hard or which ways to deal with stress are bad, like hitting your head. She knew Michael new already, and she knew he wouldn’t have done it on purpose. Michael knew she would listen and be considerate, and he could trust his mothers if he told them about his problems. 

So, he took the opportunity. He left out the wild sci-fi plot his life was, and the fact he drove drunk, but vented a little, and his mama responded in a calm voice and told him it all gets better. He wasn’t sure that it was true, but at least he had someone to talk to. Mothers aren’t the same as friends, but they’re someone.


	17. Act Two - Scene Five - The Smartphone Hour (Rich Set a Fire)

Apparently, while Michael moped around at home, news had spread across the entire school and potentially state of New Jersey. Rich set a fire at Jake Dillinger’s Halloween party, and the house burnt down. There were two casualties. Rich was in the hospital in critical condition, and Jake was in the hospital with two broken legs. This news made it to Michael, not from a gossiping friend he didn’t have, but because it was literally the only fucking thing anyone on the planet mentioned come Monday.

It sounded like Michael wasn’t the only one who had a shitty Halloween. He listened in on gossip in class, and heard roughly one hundred different accounts of the events of October 30th. He had trouble putting some names to faces, but heard that

1\. Jeremy and Brooke broke up  
2\. Rich behaved “like a freak”  
3\. Madeline was way to drunk to be fun  
4\. Stephanie almost died, conflicting reports on how  
5\. Jake and Christine broke up  
6\. Jake chased someone  
7\. Brock also chased someone  
8\. Jason faked having thrown the party  
9\. Nicole punched a guy  
10\. Dustin got punched  
11\. Elizabeth was a slut  
12\. Madeline was a slut  
13\. Katrina was a slut  
14\. Every girl at the party was a slut  
15\. Madeline kissed a girl  
16\. Mark kissed a boy  
17\. Jeremy and Chloe had sex  
18\. Jeremy made Brooke cry  
19\. Jake and Chloe got back together  
20\. Jeremy made Christine cry

And most importantly  
21\. Rich set a fire and burnt down Jake’s house

He was somewhat enticed by the number of stories that came out of the party, because Michael had very little to say about it. Some people he didn't know did things, some people he didn't know talked to him, some people he didn't know grabbed and bumped him, and he had a panic attack. Awesome party. The part that really caught his (and everyone else's) attention was the end of the night, Rich's seemingly arbitrary arson.

He heard conflicting accounts as to what happened when Rich burnt down Jake Dillinger’s house, including but not limited to: he was insane, he was super high, he was completely sober, he was suicidal, he freaked, he was trying to kill Jake, he was trying to kill Madeline, he was totally drunk, he fled the country, he died, and he did it because he had a gay revelation and panicked. Based on Michael's limited experience with the situation, he figured it was most likely squip related. He had a sneaking suspicion it also had to do with a recurring comment everyone mentioned. “Did you hear him before, though? He was totally crazy. Screaming about Mountain Dew.” Even for someone Michael didn’t like, he felt bad for Rich, especially if he had gone through what Michael was trying to warn Jeremy about that night.

He wondered if he could have helped Rich, or if Rich might have even taken his help. If he offered it, that was, which he didn't. Michael knew he had been asked for Mountain Dew Red. He did not give it to him. Rich's breakdown also made him worry about Jeremy far more than someone who wasn’t friends with Jeremy anymore should have worried about him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i don't like using words like insane and crazy, but i figure since michael is quoting random classmates, it how he hears people talk about the events. just like i don't like the idea of calling girls sluts. i apologise for the gross way michael's classmates are talking about their classmates. people can be mean.
> 
> if you've read the book, do you like my pile of random names taken directly from the book? congrats you know more people at middleborough than michael.
> 
> if you haven't read the book, don't worry, you aren't missing much in either this fanfic or like, bmc in general. it's got good parts, like stealing beanie babies for squip money, but also uses the r word twice and calls people gay as an insult. both michael and jeremy are really sexist and creepy and michael has a gross fetish for asian girls. there's also a few too many (as in more than zero) very descriptive make out and sex scenes, in one of which jeremy almost licks an infected nipple piercing. yuck. also jeremy's a furry, but that's beside the point.


	18. Act Two - Scene Six - The Pitiful Children

In the weeks following Halloween, Michael started to get over himself. His TV watching habits hadn’t changed, and he finished Star Trek: Enterprise sometime in early November. It didn’t meet his expectations following Voyager. He debated watching the alternate movies, but he knew that if he did, both past-Jeremy and his mothers in the present day would murder him if he liked them. He also didn’t think he would like them. He moved on from Buffy to the X Files, and he had watched Star Wars, Harry Potter, and the Lord of the Rings trilogy, so he was getting caught up on his mainstream nerd culture. He also read four books. It was amazing what he could do if he never went out after school.

“Well, no, they don’t actually exist I’m pretty sure. It’s a fictional backstory. It tells the story from the point of view of the twins as they, like, grow up and end up being musicians. It’s from 2010, but there was a thing before that, in 2007, but the main one was from 2010. Like… I don’t know. It’s a neat album! I like albums that tell stories.”

Michael was explaining his mom the album he had recently purchased while she made dinner. He sat at the island and kicked his feet into the side, trying to avoid walking in circles around the table again. She had asked him to stop doing that, because it was very distracting. He was trying very hard.

“I’m home!”

A click at the door revealed his mama, who had just come home from work.

“Hey, Mama! I was just telling Mom this, but I bought a new album today. It’s called—”

“Wait, Michael, before that. Did you know your school’s play is the week after next? Dana told me her daughter is in it.”

Michael nodded. He did know there was a play.

"Well, are you interested in going?"

He had a quizzical look on his face as he contemplated. He liked plays, except he didn’t really like the idea of seeing the play that Jeremy and all his friends were in. It also sounded cool though, A Midsummer Nightmare about Zombies. Shakespeare and zombies in one show.

“Nah.”

“It’s about zombies.”

His mama really wanted him to go. He really didn’t want to see Jeremy.

“I know. I don’t think I’m gonna go.”

She made a face, but Michael couldn’t tell what it meant. She must have been fine with the turn of events, though, because she didn’t continue the conversation. Michael explained his new album, and paced around the couch until his mama asked him to sit down too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is the one chapter that i really think the title has nothing to do with the content, but i didn't want to give up my naming scheme. either way i didn't know how to make it relevant, unless i made michael a mess again. i don't think the character deserves that, though. i've written two michael breakdowns already, and both were over jeremy. he's a good character though and i don't want to make his entire self revolve around jeremy at all times, even if it sometimes feels like that. to either you and me or michael. events happened weeks ago and he's still hurt, but he's not pitiful. he's doing other things now. like consuming a lot of media and infodumping to his mums.


	19. Act Two - Scene Seven - Pants

About half a week before the play, which Michael was not going to go to, Michael made a decision different than his other decisions since Jeremy's squip experience began. Especially since two of those decisions were actually the same decision twice. He decided to try to move on.

He had been cleaning his room to occupy himself when he stumbled across an old Magic card. Jeremy had gotten it for his birthday, the one before the alarm clock. His fourteenth, when his mom was working late, and his mama was out of town. No one else wished him a happy birthday.

He made the decision to burn it. He gathered several things up from his room, made one big pile of Jeremy Stuff, and brought it out to his porch. Maybe it would be cathartic, he figured.

Michael did not get very far in this process, though, and was interrupted by the person he would probably least expect. Jeremy’s dad.

“Michael!”

Michael had not seen Jeremy's dad in the two months since Jeremy's Michael-less life began, but he didn't look any different. Mr. Heere startled him out of his burning things daze, so Michael hid the joint he was smoking, and asked the half naked father of his ex-best friend why he was at his house. Jeremy’s dad then asked if Michael loved Jeremy, which he was absolutely not prepared to answer. He was overwhelmed quickly by the conversation, but before he could head inside Mr. Heere blocked him and asked to talk. Apparently, Michael only got to have more than five words per conversation with people over thirty years older than him.

For some reason it surprised Michael every time he found that Jeremy was being a jerk to other people to. Apparently, along with being an ass to his girlfriend, he had been a very disrespectful son, but part of Michael couldn’t blame Jeremy, because that was also on Mr. Heere not trying very hard to be a good dad either. Michael had seen that himself.

Mr. Heere wanted Michael’s help to resolve this. He proceeded to showed this through grabbing Michael’s hand, for some reason, as he stared him in the eyes, which was incredibly uncomfortable and what Michael could only assume was a plea. But whether or not Michael deserved Jeremy, or whether Jeremy deserved Michael, even jerks deserve to have parents that care for them. If Mr. Heere could only be a good dad if Michael helped, he'd give it a shot at least.

“If I try harder to be his friend, you have to try harder to be his dad.”

First thing first, Michael made Mr. Heere put some more clothing on, but after the conversation finished, Michael had changed his mind. Jeremy was a jerk, but maybe he didn't have to stay one. Or maybe an post mind controlled jerk and a weed smoking loner could make good friends. They had once.

Michael's fourth decision was to make the same decision a third time. He was going to try to confront Jeremy. Again.


	20. Act Two - Scene Eight - The Play

Michael was frustrated he was doing this again, but his hopes weren’t up this time.

Michael went to the play despite telling himself and his parents seven different times that he was not going to go to the play. He brought Mountain Dew Red, that he would shove down Jeremy’s throat if necessary, and rocked back and forth in his plastic auditorium seat contemplating when the right moment would be to bombard him. Even if at the end of it all Jeremy still didn’t want to be Michael’s friend, he would accept that, but he knew that the squip was more harm than good. He would be better with it gone, even if he hated Michael for it.

As Christine walked onto the stage dressed as what Michael knew to be a zombified version of Puck from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, he pulled off his headphones, took a deep breath, and decided to enjoy the show until his time came.

“Welcome, everybody. Thank you so much for coming to our production of “A Midsummer Nightmare About Zombies.””

She talked somewhat nervously, but he knew she was keen. Christine was a drama dork. So was Jeremy, once upon a time. Michael eyed his Mountain Dew.

The first problem with the show was that it was extremely good. Michael wanted to give credit to dedicated students making the show work, but he knew most of the students in the show were not the hardest of workers. No one forgot a single line. No one made a single mistake. It made Michael feel wary. He wasn’t sure what it meant, but something wasn’t right.

The second problem was that Jeremy was never on stage. Michael knew that Jeremy was playing Lysander, it was listed in the school’s mock playbill programme for the show. Jeremy’s dad said he was going to the play, so he should have been there somewhere. Mr. Reyes, the drama teacher, was playing Lysander. Michael was debating whether to consider the fact the show was still seamless and perfect despite the should-be-awkward insert of Mr. Reyes into the story to be a third problem when his phone rang.

His phone rang, and he just about lurched out of his seat, every eye in the auditorium on him. (Except for the actors. They were focused.) He struggled to turn it off, but saw the number before he did and he felt his face go pale. Jeremy called him. He pressed answer, put the phone to his ear, and tried his damnedest to shuffle to the end of the row and get out of the theatre as fast as possible.

All he heard on the phone was Jeremy yell, like he was shoved or grabbed, but he was already headed to the drama room entrance. He didn't really choose it, but the time came to him. Now was the moment. He’d go backstage, while the show was going, he guessed. It was kind of cool, people aren't allowed to do that.

Michael calls out his own entrance in a slightly cocky, over the top way, but Jeremy saw him. Jeremy lay the floor, and looked up at him. He saw Michael and shouted for him excitedly. It made Michael’s heart skip a beat. He was going to save the day.

Jeremy didn't ignore him, and he wanted help. All Michael wanted was an apology. Sure, it was rather poorly timed, but Michael forgot to consider empathy and situational awareness for a moment. He was upset.

And when Jeremy wouldn’t apologise, Michael got more frustrated. He didn't understand why Jeremy couldn't just explain himself, especially if he was going to act like he didn't hate Michael's guts for a single sentence once every month. He refused Jeremy the drink until he apologised. It was when Jeremy started hitting Michael that he was sure he’d blown it again. Not that Jeremy was particularly strong.

“This is so you! You love to feel superior, just because you listen to music on vinyl and eat eel in your sushi and don’t care about being popular!”

Michael was hurt. All he wanted was an apology for being treated like garbage. He wasn’t better for those things, those were just cool things. Did Jeremy know what liking things was?

“Of course I care! I just know it’s never gonna happen!”

Then they were fighting.

“So you resent me because I wouldn’t give up like you did?”

“I don’t resent you! I’m jealous you try!”

Michael didn’t mean to say that one out loud. The response was somewhat jarring.

“Well, I’m jealous you don’t!”

Then Michael was confused again. That was not a conversation you have while hitting the person you’re talking to. Jeremy made a face when Michael told him to stop, but he broke through, as if in pain.

“It’s my—squip!”

He tried to pull himself away from Michael, too, and finally forced an apology through. Michael knew the squip made him do things, but he didn't know it could be in a literal sense. He had also told himself that it could alter Jeremy's perception, but Michael did not know that squips could take over bodies. Did Rich set that fire?

Michael didn’t know what to do, so he tackled Jeremy to the ground. They landed with a thud and the wind got knocked out of Michael. Jeremy flailed wildly, but Michael was bigger than him. He had to dodge being kicked in the teeth. Michael looked around backstage for basically any help, and he noticed Jake Dillinger.

“Jake!”

Michael them made the strangest request he probably ever had, and he asked it of a complete stranger. He tossed the bottle to Jake to force feed Jeremy, but to Michael’s utter dismay Jake proceeded to pour it out on the ground, and show off his ability to walk on his two broken legs, something very unhealthy to do on broken legs. He had been squipped. Everyone had been squipped!

It was like a zombie movie, or game, or specifically, Apocalypse of the Damned if you asked Michael. Or maybe more like the play he had been watching? It depended how he interpreted the play. Shakespeare spoke in tongues anyways, no matter how well the play was performed Michael didn't actually know what was going on in it. While he was thinking, or dissociating, depending who you asked, Chloe Valentine and Brooke Lohst approached in a creepy movie twin children way. They dumped confessions onto Jeremy that Michael only had snippets of classmate drama to piece together the context with. Man, Jeremy had been busy since the start of term.

Jeremy nudged Michael while the squipped girls talked in unison. He pointed out the small pool left in the bottle of Mountain Dew that had been dumped on the ground, then recommended the same ridiculous thing Michael’s brain had suggested earlier. This was Apocalypse of the Damned. That’s why Michael loved Jeremy.

Of course, Michael didn’t actually know anything about martial arts, nor did he have any useful weapon, nor did he want to actually physically harm any of the Middleborough School Play’s members even if he could. They were still human, probably.

Luckily, Michael was good at squirming. He dodged his way though the crowd of zombies like he was a fucking video game character to grab a bottle of Mountain Dew Red to defeat the evil computer in his best friend of twelve years minus the last two month’s brain. And he was living on adrenaline, because otherwise he was fucking certain he must have been having a fever dream.

He grabbed the bottle and tossed it to Jeremy as he was overwhelmed by a crowd of students grabbing at him. His very over adrenaline-drugged brain could only focus on what the people out front, on stage might be seeing. Was the play still good? It was calming to try and maintain some semblance of the reality he lived in for sixteen years prior to that moment.

More relevantly, Jeremy was yelling to himself while seemingly fighting to drink the Mountain Dew. It made Michael sick to watch. He must have been fighting the squip, whatever that meant within Jeremy’s point of view Michael couldn’t know. It looked like a performance.

“Christine?”

“Did you see me out there? The audience loved me!”

Michael didn’t see her approach. Christine stood before Jeremy, and he became distracted away from trying to drink while she spoke to him. She spoke softly, and Michael couldn’t hear what she was saying, but he knew it was bad news. His voice caught in his throat. He wanted to tackle Jeremy again, but he was being held firmly but what would be far too many people in even the friendliest of situations.

“She’ll do whatever I want?”

Michael didn’t believe he would do it, but he wasn’t sure anymore. He just closed his eyes and hoped, as if he could communicate with him telepathically any better than he had any time before, which is to say, not, because Michael still wasn’t telepathic.

“Uh… Christine?”

He kind of wished his eyes were open, though, because then maybe he could have seen some sort of visual cue that would have indicated that everyone was going to scream at the top of their lungs until blacking out. That would have been nice.

Suffice to say it scared Michael. He covered his ears and started screaming too.


	21. Interlude IV

Michael didn’t know if he should leave when everyone fainted. He was the only one still conscious in a room full of unconscious people who maybe needed medical attention? He wasn’t sure. He sat down on the floor. He looked around, still covering his ears, even though the sound had stopped. He was very tired.

Michael put his headphones on and hit shuffle. He tried rehearsing what to say to 911, but he needed to be calmer before he could call for an ambulance or something, if that was even necessary. He wished he had any sort of first aid training.

The song that came up was by Bob Marley. It had played the day Jeremy got his squip. Michael skipped this song every day until then, but that day, on the floor in the auditorium, it made him smile. He snickered. Michael was the hero. He didn't mean to talk out loud, but his thoughts came out in a singsong voice, as if he were teasing someone.

"I was the hero. You lose, Squip!"


	22. Interlude V

Christine was the first person to wake up. Was regaining consciousness after trauma waking up? Either way, she did so before the ambulance arrived.

“Wha…?”

“You fainted. Everyone did ecstasy. It was bad.”

Michael didn’t know what to do, and it was a very bad lie, but he told it anyways because if he said nothing she might assume he did something. He wasn't sure what she could assume he did, but he didn't want to be blamed for this.

“No, it was… No. The little brain computer! Did you have one?”

“No.”

“Oh. That must sound ridiculous.”

“Yes. No. It’s—that happened. They’re off. Everyone fainted.”

“Hey, are you okay?”

Michael wasn’t sure.

“Um. I called 911. Can I leave?”

Christine nodded, probably more confused than agreeing, but Michael needed to leave, so he took it as permission.


	23. Interlude VI

Based on their brief and confusing back-and-forth while de-squipping the cast of A Midsummer Nightmare about Zombies, Michael decided to go off the assumption that Jeremy did not in fact hate him, and might be slightly okay with seeing him.

He was also incredibly worried, more terrified than ever for the two days before Jeremy woke up.

So, he was at the hospital. Luckily, he had some company other than Jeremy’s seemingly lifeless body. Unluckily, that company was Rich. Luckily, it was Rich without a squip, which was apparently not that bad.

The first thing Rich did upon seeing Michael enter his and Jeremy’s shared hospital room was apologise. He apologised for a lot of things, including events even Michael had forgotten.

“I thought I had to. The squip. It really messes with your head. Jeremy—the same thing happened. I’m sorry. It’s also my fault he got one.”

After Rich had finished his spiel, Michael nodded awkwardly. The first thing Michael asked Rich was what his name was. As soon as he had spoken to Michael it reminded him of grade nine science. He was talking to the same person, and if Michael was going to give Jeremy another chance, maybe Rich deserved one too. Maybe not, but maybe so. Rich scoffed, confused.

“You know my name.”

“I want to be introduced to you. I’m Michael. What’s your name?”

He hesitated for a moment, then smiled. It was a crooked smile, but genuine, with dimples. It didn’t even resemble the sneer Michael had seen before.

“Richard Goranski. Hi, Michael.”

“Hey, Rich.”


	24. Act Two - Scene Nine - Voices in My Head

“—been by like, a ton, by the way. What is he, your boyfriend? No judgment. Just curious. Totally bi now.”

Michael could hear Rich talking to Jeremy through the door. About him. He swallowed hard. He’d come as soon as he heard Jeremy was awake, but now he was nervous.

“I’m sure some special someone will be lucky to have you, Rich.”

“You think?”

Michael closed the curtain between Rich and Jeremy. It came across as rude, probably, he realised in retrospect, but Rich went quiet. 

Michael sat on the end of Jeremy’s bed, crossed legs, rocking back and forth. It was awkward for a moment, but after a few apologies—from both sides—Michael and Jeremy were almost able to jump right back into rhythm. It wasn’t perfect, but as soon as they started talking, Michael got excited to explain what had happened. Once he had calmed down from it all, he had decided it was the most badass moment of his life.

Plus, Jeremy was remorseful. He didn’t understand why Michael was there. Frankly, Michael wasn’t entirely sure either. He loved Jeremy. That was it. That, and that time when Jeremy’s dad approached him while he was burning stuff. That was weird, but an important motivator for Michael not giving up entirely.

Then Jeremy started crying when he saw his dad wearing pants. Michael felt proud of himself. He made him do that. Was Jeremy crying because he was doped up on drugs or was the image of his father in long trousers that emotionally provoking? Michael may never know. But he was happy, and Michael was happy, and Mr. Heere smiled too.

Jeremy’s dad then questioned him on Christine, and started giving him relationship advice. Michael chimed in, too, despite never actually dating anyone, let alone a girl. Rich “I Just Had My Bi Revelation and am Loving it” Goranski also had details to add, and Michael reopened the curtain for him, apologising for earlier. It was nice.

Eventually, Jeremy was back at school. Michael's awesome alarm went off in the morning, and he dragged himself out of bed. He brushed his teeth like any day. He drove to school, music blaring, and after class he sat with Jeremy at lunch. He also sat with Christine and Rich. This was new. This was also nice. Michael also had a new sense of resolve; he had become more open to making bad decisions, and because of this, he had one bad idea that he couldn't get off his mind. After all that had gotten them here, he decided to take one last risk. Not now, but eventually. Michael made a fifth decision. It was either going to be as bad as the first three, or as good as the fourth, but it was important for him to have made.

One day, Michael would tell Jeremy he loved him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey, if you made it this far (to the end) i want you to know i love you!! i would love to hear your thoughts on it if you would like to share! you are one of the first people who have ever read my writing because this is my first piece of writing! thanks so much


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